Nov 28 2008
Writing Tip: Give Your Characters Urgent Goals, Not Joy Rides
Giving your characters urgent goals will help make your story dramatic and interesting. For example, let’s say John wants to go to prom, but his parents won’t let him unless he does well on a chemistry test. Will he actually go to prom? That’s a dramatic question.
Unfortunately, many manuscripts introduce the character without a goal, hoping that readers will trudge along until the character actually has something to do. Don’t trap yourself into something like this.
CADET DAVIS: In this first chapter, your hero doesn’t do very much except for walking across town and chatting with another character. What’s the point? What’s he trying to accomplish?
AUTHOR: He’s introducing himself and the setting.
CADET DAVIS: That’s what you’re trying to accomplish. What’s his goal? What’s at stake for this character?
AUTHOR: Well, nothing, not yet anyway. In a few chapters, he’ll find out that he has to realize his destiny by going on a quest to stop the villain.
CADET DAVIS: If nothing’s at stake now, why will readers find this chapter interesting?
AUTHOR: *silence*
Unfortunately, if publishers or readers find your manuscript’s first few pages boring, they will not keep reading. From the earliest part of your story, your main character needs to have a goal.
So what do you do if your hero doesn’t know what his main goal is yet? For example, at the start of Harry Potter, Harry doesn’t know that his primary goal is to “go to Hogwarts and thwart Voldemort.” He doesn’t even know that he’s a wizard. J.K. Rowling used temporary goals to tide us over. For example, “read the letter that Uncle Vernon is trying to hide from you.” Those goals made him interesting even though we didn’t know anything about his magical destiny.
What sort of temporary goals work? Anything that has high-stakes for the character. It doesn’t have to be life or death, of course. (Harry Potter only needed to obtain a letter!)
What sort of temporary goals don’t work? Joy rides. If a character is trying something just for kicks, or to have a good time or just because he’s curious, the stakes are probably not high enough for him for us to care. One main exception to the rule against joy rides is that sometimes, deep into a superhero story, you can briefly show the character trying out his new superpowers. That will stall the plot, but that’s mostly OK because we need to know what the hero is capable of. Also, by that point of the story, you better have convinced readers that you have a plot or you are screwed anyway.
But what about a “joy ride” at the start of the story that leads the main character to his mission, or another major character?
For example, Bob is a bored teen, who steals a fancy looking car and takes it for a joy ride. The car he steals belongs to a vampire who pursues him. This leads to Bob’s main goal for the story, staying alive and finding a way to kill the vampire.
If he steals the car because he’s bored, I feel that’s probably going to be boring. I’d recommend giving him a more pressing reason to steal the car. For example, he wants to impress a girl. He needs to win a street-race to pay for something crucial. Etc.
Giving him a goal will make us care more about whether he lives or dies.
Well, my first goal is “get out of school, and go check out Ian’s car”.
- Wings
I did an rpg thread where I started with the two main characters using their powers to apprehend a super-powered crook. Now I’ve fallen in love with the “villain” in this scene, so if I make it into a book, it’s going to turn out to be a demo for a congressman to persuade him to keep funding the team.
Yah, I’ve a problem with plot again.
…
I’ve got great characters (I think) but no actual plot and I was considering maybe participating in NaNoWriMo. That’s not going to happen, but I’d still like the story to go somewhere.
There’s this separate world that houses fairies–basically fairies of wind, water, seasons, etc. each living in their own environment in the realm except/unless they leave for a while to make autumn, or a flood (maybe the water fairies are mischievous? I don’t know) anyhow one of the autumn fairies has to for some reason, escape to earth. And to make herself less easy to find, she becomes visible and tunes down her true form, the problem is autumn still ‘follows’ her. She ends up in a small town and decides to stay there for a while, tired of wandering all over the place–the only time they can ‘teleport’ and not fly and/or travel like a normal human is when going from one world to the other.
The problem is I’ve little idea of why on earth she has to leave her own realm, and why her fellow fairies wouldn’t be able to help her. I was thinking of something pathetically … pathetic (don’t laugh) along the lines of an earthquake fairy being obsessed with her and having random minions-random because why on earth would he have minions-try to get her so he can force her to marry him. I abandoned that idea quite early because it was so totally sad plot wise, so many plot holes in it, and because it shows how horrible my block has gotten that I’d consider such an awful plot.
I’m quite desperate, too. I haven’t written/completed anything in quite a while and it’s total torture to not be able to.
I just need some plot help. ^^
If it becomes more than that, I’d be happy to take it to my review forum. Unless I should’ve in the first place. I’m not quite sure.
Autumn isn’t all that great of a season all the time, there’s severe weather, people die, and if you were an Autumn fairy, your job would basically be to kill everything at the end of the day. Autumn is the time of the harvest because the once new-born animals are maturated and ready to be slaughtered, the plants are harvested because the frost will kill them soon. What if they are forced to do the fairy activities by a higher council that knows that the balance is essential to life? One day, she could come to Earth, receive word that she has to cause a tornado or some other disaster and while following orders, she ends up accidentally killing a human she had grown sympathetic towards? A young boy or girl? So she casts off her fairy coil, comes to Earth to escape the horrors she has been perpetrating for centuries.
Her fellow fairies don’t follow because they can’t abandon their posts. If you think about climates, a winter fairy would still have to play with mountain tops, or other random parts of the world at almost all times. Depending on your market and tone, the winter fairies could be in charge of making sure that ice cube trays work and all kinds of mundane stuff.
What’s the protagonist’s personality like? What’s her goal? (Hopefully it’s not just reacting to the earthquake fairy’s plot– please make her proactive).
Okay, just throwing out some random traits… Stir-crazy (bored), curmudgeonly, mentally sharp.
She’s bored of doing the same thing all the time, autumn comes once a year for three months (and then a few months in another hemisphere, if you want to get technical). It’s routine and she wants a challenge. So she decides to jump off to Earth and try something completely new. Maybe she wants to experience the other seasons? Maybe she’s been teased one time too many by the other seasons and her goal is to make their life as difficult as possible.
Then the question is, I think, how you would work humans or humanoids into the story. For example, perhaps a wizard is investigating why the weather has suddenly gone crazy.
@ Lighting Man, I guess I was thinking of autumn fairies as more like the foliage begins changing color and the temperature drops and all that, leaving the tornadoes and everything to wind fairies or chaos fairies or something.
Nobody on earth would believe it. The thing about the investigating or bringing news networks-autumn in the middle of a Georgia/Pen./NY/wherever summer!? Possible ‘breaking news’-or anyone into the picture is I have serious issues with how they’d go about things and act. Just like if I ever mention police investigations or whatehaveyou in my other stories, I don’t go very in depth at all because I have no actual idea what really goes on and what talk they’d use and and … yah.
I do like the idea of her having to do something that goes against her morals or maybe she actually finds someone in serious, serious trouble but in accordance with fairy/realm law, she isn’t allowed to do anything; and they die while she’s watching …?
And then she makes herself visible and decides to live on earth for a while and see if there’s some way she can use her abilities to help someone (though I doubt she could … really all she does is show up and travel around, wherever she travels-North America is her ‘territory’-fall begins?)
Also, thanks for the last paragraph, that helps a lot, they would have to be dedicated to do what they do century after century.
@ B. Mac
That’s the huge problem, I really don’t know what her ‘goal’ is. Sometimes I have serious problems with goals-as I do in real life-because, I kind of view life as just …life. And stuff happens to you. It’s hard for me to go ‘and they may want to do this, and this is what they want to accomplish by the end of the story’ because it’s hard for me to write about anything that’s not even remotely true for myself or that I can’t really see.
Very true. She would be quite bored. I was figuring a lot of it would be interacting with all the people and everything. I mean … whatever happens, in all of her years of bringing autumn to earth she’s resisted the urge to appear and talk with humans as long as she can and just goes through towns and cities being careful not to pay attention to much, otherwise she’d distract and tempt herself. So if she had free reign whether by rebellion or just escaping, I’m sure I could come up with a lot of interesting stuff that happens to her.
Also, it’s in modern times … which I kind of like because, well, fairies?
Wow. Long post (sorry). In a nutshell, I like a lot of both of your thoughts/ideas plotwise and I think I’ll combine them. ^^
Thanks, guys.
I’ve never really had this problem. When Dante Valin isn’t trying to figure out what to do or where to go, or in some cases, who to trust and follow, he’s trying to either run from Fatum, the dicator’s militia, or hinder them so that he can get closer to his ultimate goal.
… Heh, these reply comments on this site are a little harsh don’t you think… Even on new people.(writers)
Not being mean (if so I’m not) it’s just expects you to know everything about writing here. (Not sure if your goal here is to discourage others) dunno, just feels that way.
And if you ask questions the replies will be “You should feel stupid because of this” type. If you are offended by this, I am sorry, it’s just how I’m feeling here. You’ll probably say a mean response to this because I’m a teenager and I’m a (newb) to writing. I feel that the responses to questions are supposed to make you feel ashamed for ever asking. Maybe the world is like that doubting people to ask for help. I’m not sure, to me every writing website gives you harsh answers.. :/ Maybe it’s just me
I mean the tips on this site (most) to me are great. Some, mostly the replies discourage you from even trying to write. It takes the fun out of even writing. (By the way, I don’t want to be published, Im afraid of rejection and mean comments that criticize. I just want to know how to write a story without having to worry about questions about how good do you think it is compared to other “famous” writers…) Are you allowed to just write for fun? Or is that bad also? (U know I just want to see my characters come to life, without all the other tensions.)
By the way my name isn’t big blondo, it’s Hina (sorry)
“These reply comments on this site are a little harsh don’t you think… Even on new writers.” I feel that the comments on SN are noticeably gentler than the average publishing website. For example, Flogging the Quill, Query Shark and Evil Editor are all excellent resources, but generally more curt than SN. For example, Evil Editor’s (immensely helpful) review of my query included quotes such as “You may not have meant it this way, but you managed to insult professional writers while talking down to teens,” “This is a bad query letter,” and “You might be a really nice person trying to sound confident and sell her/himself, but you came out sounding pompous*.” All of those claims are entirely professional and I feel that EE’s suggestions for improvement helped me grow as an author.
*I do have a pompous streak.
That said, I feel I have been pretty consistently polite. For example, I’m pretty religious about using qualifying phrases like “I think” and “I feel” to reinforce that almost everything I cover (besides most of the grammar/punctuation/mechanics) is just my opinion. It’s possible for intelligent people to disagree without either being wrong.
“And if you ask questions the replies will be ‘You should feel stupid because of this’ type.” Hmm, could you give me some examples there? I’m having trouble reconciling your assessment with mine. Alternately, could you give some examples of publishing professionals that are noticeably more polite/welcoming than I am? I’m always up for learning new diplomatic skills.
…
“You’ll probably say a mean response to this because I’m a teenager and I’m a (newb) to writing. I feel that the responses to questions are supposed to make you feel ashamed for ever asking.” Hmm, again, I would appreciate if you could give me some examples here. Currently, my impression is that my advice and suggestions are generally pretty polite. Quite a few authors–at least 100, including at least 10 teenagers–have asked me for help or advice more than once, which suggests to me that I’m on the right track.
…
“By the way, I don’t want to be published, I’m afraid of rejection and mean comments that criticize.” I feel that criticism can be an immensely helpful aspect of the learning process. However, I see that your expectations for your work are very different (not worse, not wrong, just different) than the expectations of most professional authors and prospective professionals. So, please feel to write your heart out for fun. However, because our expectations are so different, I don’t think I can offer you much advice that would actually help you. My apologies.
Well I don’t know, sorry for being mean. It’s just that other writing websites are very harsh and I took some of the replies in the wrong way. I just don’t know when I should write, it seems like I have to do a bunch of extra things before I even write. Other websites for writing doubt people a lot (well maybe some).
Hey Hina, B.Mac has covered most of it. I have been on this site since the beginning of the year, and it has greatly improved my writing, though I have never gotten a response that is harsh or discouraging. This is a community of writers that want to learn and express their love for the art, so we have no reason to discourage our fellow writers.
Also if you have a basic plot line we can help you expand it to become a full fledged story (if you want of course).
Lastly this is not another writing site, this is SN.
I had been thinking a lot about goals and objectives lately, especially relating to the scenes.
For example, my protagonist’s first goal is: “Make a good first impression with Finn, who is the exchange student staying with him for a semester.”
The motivation behind it is: “Making a bad first impression could possibly turn off the exchange student, who seems a little fragile, making the whole experience a little more difficult on the long-run. Plus, his father’s there with them.”
Result: Finn both intrigues and disturbs Bryan by the way he acts, which starts the domino chain for the first reveal (Finn is a psychic, and spirits are real).
Making good goals for Bryan is important, since he supposed to be very proactive.
There’s this improv exercise that I played in middle school Drama class that I been trying to apply to each scene I write. I’ll share it later once I deal with two things: My writing, and Team Fortress 2.